New drug response team looks to help, not just arrest users

Scott Duff is the director of Project F.O.R.T., a new county drug overdose response team that tries to help those who have accidentally overdosed find treatment.(Photo: Jeff Barron/Eagle-Gazette)Buy Photo

LANCASTER - The new Fairfield County Overdose Response Team (Project F.O.R.T.) is more interested in helping drug users get treatment than arresting them.

The team works with the Fairfield-Hocking-Athens Major Crimes Unit and various community agencies and organizations to help those who accidentally overdose on drugs get treatment by connecting them with the appropriate recovery source. The team has helped about 20 people so far and has about 30 partners throughout the county after starting as a pilot program in Violet Township.

"I think it's time for us to look at progressive and other approaches to these problems and challenges that face our communities," MCU Commander Dennis Lowe said. "So I see Project F.O.R.T. and the education and prevention component of what we're doing, and the outreach, as kind of the next evolution of that. Quite frankly, we can't continue to just incarcerate our way out of this problem."

Project F.O.R.T. is primarily funded through a two-year, $87,000 grant from the Ohio Attorney General's office. The total cost is about $120,000 with the additional funding from the Fairfield County commissioners and the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

Project F.O.R.T. partners include the Violet Township and Lancaster fire departments, The Recovery Center, Creed of Recovery, the Ohio National Guard Counter Drug Program and faith-based groups to help drug abusers.

Scott Duff is the Project F.O.R.T. director. He has worked for the state attorney general's office for 32 years before recently retiring from there. Duff spent the past 25 years in the office's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) heading its various drug-related units.

"We realized that one of the ways we could try to combat this problem is to set up what we call quick-response teams," Duff said. "Some of them are enforcement-minded. Some are more treatment-and-recovery-minded. There's probably going to be more treatment and recovery."

He said the team also works with those in recovery by helping them find employment, transportation and other necessities.

In order to provide help faster, Duff said Project F.O.R.T. will soon have access to a real-time data collection system that will notify team members of an accidental overdoes minutes after it occurs. Such data will also be useful in determining where overdoses spikes may be occurring, which may lead police to the source of the drugs.

Aaron Smith, 38, said he would probably be dead or in prison if not for Project F.O.R.T.

"Without a doubt," he said. "I've couldn't have been closer to death because my body was giving out."

He now has five months clean after suffering a seizure while on heroin and Xanax at his mother's house. The Violet Township first-aid squad took the call, and Lt. J.D. Postage was on the scene.

After Smith was released from the hospital, Postage came by and talked to him about drug treatment. That led to treatment and a job at Creed of Recovery, a six-month sober house for recovering substance abusers. Smith now works there as the project housing manager.

"It's going really well for me now," he said. "There are so many opportunities that are presenting themselves to me now."

Postage is a community paramedic. Part of his job is going back for return visits to patients the rescue squad has dealt with to see if they need anything else. That could include getting a prescription for someone unable to get themselves or help someone get their furnace fixed in the winter, along with helping with drug treatment.

City fire department Capt. K.J. Watts said such help can cut down on 911 calls and that the city is looking to have its own community paramedic. Watts also supports Project F.O.R.T.

"It can't hurt," he said. "I don't think it's the sole thing that will help with our drug epidemic, but it can't hurt. We have a higher prevalence of opiate abuse because of our demographics. But we have to get our heads out of the sand."